"I wanted to see the world / Then I flew over the ocean / And I changed my mind"

Phoebe Bridgers, "Kyoto"

I spoke with my Dad last night for Father's Day (Sunday morning, his time).  My sister is out visiting him right now, which is a treat for him and also a reassurance.

He lives with his girlfriend in the middle of nowhere, Washington State.  He asked me how much I enjoyed the Trump Rally in Tulsa (in his mind-set, everybody loves Trump and watches FOX News for at least five hours a day).

Anyhow, his girlfriend wants to leave and go back to Florida.  My Dad, at 91, is definitely entering into the early stages of dementia.  It could be a bluff, who knows, and that's part of the reason my sister went out in-person.  She'll go again in August with my nephew.  It's no secret now that we're getting into "maybe this is the last time they'll get to spend time together" territory.

To be blunt, this woman is horribly abrasive and a compulsive liar.  And as unpleasant as she is by nature, not even my Dad's money can seem to keep her around any longer.  (We aren't talking mega-bucks, but a very comfortable full-on Federal pension that comes in every month.  She was scraping by with her criminal son on Social Security back in Florida.  She's claiming she wants to go back to that.)

I'm 95% certain I'll return to America in February.  The idea is that I'd move out to Bellingham and stay with my dad.  (He can't live alone any longer.)

Given that Trump has literally given up on fighting the coronavirus, I'll be moving back to a country in the middle of a pandemic with no health insurance to speak of and presumably looking for some kind of work in the middle of what's going to be a major recession at best.

I've got savings, but I'll probably need to buy a car as soon as I get back.  Insurance.  Gas.  Tires.  Some drunk asshole yanking off your side-view mirror just because.  All that shit I've gratefully not had to worry about for over a decade.

My mom died at 51, relatively young.  Ovarian cancer.  1992.  About one month before I graduated from high school.  A whole different set of nightmares and complications.  But it was over in under a year.

There's no good way to watch a parent die, obviously.  But given his isolation and refusal to consider moving back east, this is looking like the only viable plan.

She Is The Law

In South Korea, traditionally mother-in-laws wield an enormous amount of power over their daughter in-laws.  There are even shows and a web comic about it:

"Audiences were shocked when actor Min Ji-young had to go to the salon because her mother-in-law insisted she look her best before visiting their house for the first time. 

Or when former flight attendant Park Sae-mi, who is currently in her final month of pregnancy, cooked food at her in-law’s house while her husband was away on business. As she worked hard preparing a meal, her mother-in-law prodded, 'When are you going to have a third child?' 

Kim Dan-bin must face her mother-in-law day and night because they run a restaurant together. All three wives, despite the fact that they are members of the family, are being abused in many ways."

 This sounds like a total nightmare, of course.